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Has anyone here been watching the Olympics? Pretty amazing isn’t it? World record after world record has fallen. This year we have a 41 year old swimmer, Dara Torres, who, has won metals in five Olympics. The list of participants that have turned in phenomenal performances is long and the number of people that set aside hours to watch are millions (I’m one of them).

I find it interesting that when we compare what our athletes, or for that matter our business people, or our scientists, or our politicians have accomplished to what God has done – we are insignificant. Yet so often we find life’s purpose and satisfaction in our temporal accomplishments, in the creature rather than the creator.

Last week we looked at Genesis one and closed with four theological points:

1. God is responsible for all that exists. Reality is not mindless, it is not meaningless – there is a creator. All that exists comes from the purposes of God.
2. God is outside his creation – not part of it. While God is everywhere, pantheism is wrong.
3. When God created, it was good – Genesis 1
4. God has personhood – “Let us create man in our own image”

Today I’d like to continue talking about “creation” and how the biblical authors use “God as creator” in their thinking.

Scripture continually reinforces God as creator

In the O.T. We find the Hebrew term bara’ 57 times. This word for “creation” means to fashion or to create or to originate something new, fresh, and perfect. In the first 27 verses of Genesis bara’ is used three times.

Genesis 1:1 (NIV)
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Genesis 1:21 (NIV)
So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind…

Genesis 1:27 (NIV)
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

God as creator distinguishes Jehovah as the true God.

Isaiah 37:16 (NIV)
“O Lord Almighty, God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth.”

Psalm 96:5 (NIV)
For all the gods of the nations are idols, but the Lord made the heavens.

Jeremiah 10:11-12 (NIV)
“Tell them this: ‘These gods, who did not make the heavens and the earth, will perish from the earth and from under the heavens.’” ¹² But God made the earth by his power; he founded the world by his wisdom and stretched out the heavens by his understanding.”

Not only is God the creator, his creation “screams” of the creator.

Acts 17:24-27 (NIV) – Paul to the Athenians
“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. ²⁵ And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. ²⁶ From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. ²⁷ God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.”

Romans 1:18-23 (NIV)
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, ¹⁹ since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. ²⁰ For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities-his eternal power and divine nature-have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. ²¹ For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. ²² Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools ²³ and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

God’s creation, in many ways, show us how sinful we are. Even though it is obvious that God exists, our tendency is to bend the truth, or deny it, so we can serve our own priorities.

Our helper is unfailing and tireless:

Isaiah 40:28-31 (NIV)
²⁸ Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. ²⁹ He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. ³⁰ Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; ³¹ but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

Isaiah uses “God as creator” to give surety to his promises:

Isaiah 42:5-7 (NIV)
This is what God the Lord says – he who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and all that comes out of it, who gives breath to its people, and life to those who walk on it: ⁶ “I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, ⁷ to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.

In the New Testament the authors are clear that the Messiah (Jesus) is not only the one who came to die for us and bring us back into relationship with the creator – he Jesus is the creator:

John 1:1-5 (NIV)
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was with God in the beginning. ³ Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. ⁴ In him was life, and that life was the light of men. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

Colossians 1:15-17 (NIV)
[The Son] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. ¹⁶ For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. ¹⁷ He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Let me leave you with these two thoughts:

God ONLY is worthy of worship

Revelation 4:11 (NIV)
“You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.”

A proper view of God our creator should drive us to humility

Psalm 8:3-4 (NIV)
When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, ⁴ what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?